Comedian Chris Tucker’s Home Faces Foreclosure Threat

Hollywood funny-man Chris Tucker, most famous for his role as the wise-cracking police detective sidekick of Jackie Chan in the hit Rush Hour movies, is looking likely to lose his Central Florida mansion to foreclosure.

Tucker, 39, snapped up his $6 million Lake Apopka home back in 2007, but is reported to still owe $4.4 million on the property, to the SunTrust Bank. Last week, the Orlando Sentinel reported that the bank had filed foreclosure papers at the Lake County Circuit Court.

The home was previously one of eight luxury mansions paraded during a special “Street of Dreams” event in 2006, shortly before the real estate bubble burst so spectacularly. Back then, unimproved one-acre land parcels in the super rich Bella Collina community were selling for hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Comedian Tucker’s home is a hugely extravagant place, boasting five bedrooms, one of which is fitted with a personal spa, three fireplaces, a pool with its own outdoor kitchen, and a most unusual basement themed like a pirate’s ship, complete with wooden decks, a sail mast and sails.

Circuit Court documents described how the Internal Revenue Service last year imposed an $11.5 million lien on Tucker’s home, in an attempt to collect unpaid federal income tax from the actor. According to the documents, Tucker’s monthly mortgage payments were in the region of $25,000 a month.

Meaning “Beautiful Hill” in Italian, the Bella Collina neighborhood is a 1,900 acre high-end community, overlooking a championship golf course and several picturesque lakes. Developer Edward “Bobby” Ginn II had originally planned to build 800 Tuscan homes in the community, although this dream never materialized as property markets around the U.S. came crashing down.

According to Lake County records, over 700 transactions for lots on the Bella Collina estate had gone through between 2004 and 2007, before the bubble burst. However, of the 801 lots planned, only 40 of them were ever developed into homes.

Tucker’s home is now valued at $1.6 million, according to an assessment by Lake County appraisers.